The Slide
by metallicgirl42
Summary: What happens when two girls go to the pool...and end up saving the town? This story's a spinoff to 'True Love...Or Is It', about Hermione and Andrea. You don't have to read that to read this, but it'd help. Set after 'True Love...'. Full summary inside.
1. The Slide Less Traveled

Hey there! Okay. Andrea and Hermione just wanted to have an innocent day of fun at the pool…but when they go down "the slide less traveled", if you will, they end up going backwards in time and teaming up with Edward, a boy who has a very strange fear of girls, to defeat a ghost that's terrorizing the town.

Please r&r!

"This is going to be _so _fun," Andrea Potter, Harry's long-lost sister, said, her bright pink flip-flops slapping against the pavement.

"I know," said Hermione. She was holding two towels (one for Andrea, and one for herself), while Andrea was swinging the pool bag in one arm. They were going swimming at the new waterpark that had just been built across town. There were two slides there: one, that everybody used, and another, that neither Andrea nor Hermione had ever seen anybody actually go down. They decided they were going to go down that one, just so they could be different.

"Do you want to swim in the water a bit before we go on the slide, or do you want to try it right away?" asked Andrea, taking the ponytail holders that held her high pigtails in and putting them on her wrists, one on either side.

"Umm…I don't know, I want to swim in the water a bit first," said Hermione, looking just a bit nervous at the gigantic slide. "You can go down it first and tell me how much you like it. Like a slide critic."

"Whatever you say," said Andrea, smiling. "I wanted to go first, anyway."

The two girls found two chairs, one for Hermione, one for Andrea. They set their towels and the pool bag down and went to the water. Hermione smiled and pinched her nose so that no water could get up it and jumped into the water with a big splash.

"How is it?" Andrea asked, taking her sunglasses off and making sure to put them in the pool bag so nobody could steal them.

"Great!" said Hermione. "Now, go in the slide and tell me about that, since I told you whether the water was cold or not."

She swam toward the place where the second slide let you off into the water and Andrea began to climb the stairs. She had this thing called "surfing", where she rode down the slide sitting up with her hands on the slide and her legs folded underneath her. She called it "surfing" because it reminded her of a move she'd seen a surfer do once.

"Please, can I go yet?" Andrea asked the lifeguard who was making sure everything was safe on top of the slide tower, jumping from foot to foot with impatience.

"Wait…" said the lifeguard. "Okay, now that girl's away from the rope" (she had been talking about a younger girl who had accidentally swam under the rope near the mouth of the slide, because nobody was going down the slide except Andrea and Hermione), "so you can go."

Andrea practically flew down the slide, she was going so fast. She did "surfing", and she didn't even hear when the lifeguard told her to lay down. She closed her eyes, which caused her to not see the little circle of light that had just opened in front of her. She went right into it…and suddenly felt a rush of howling wind around her.

She opened her eyes and looked around herself. There were flying squirrels and the sunlit day had turned into a windy, stormy one. She couldn't see anything except for purple light (and the flying squirrels, which would have been funny if Andrea hadn't been so confused about where she was).



Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Hermione was waiting for Andrea by the mouth of the slide. When she didn't see her come out for longer than she knew the slide took, she searched for her on the whole slide. When she couldn't find her friend anywhere, she ran up the steps two at a time and asked the lifeguard, who clearly hadn't noticed what had happened to Andrea, if she could go. As soon as the lifeguard nodded, Hermione sat down on the slide and couldn't wait for it to go fast enough. Finally, though, she saw the swirling vortex of color that had just opened up in front of her.

"AUGH!" Hermione cried, as she felt a force pulling her into the portal—an irresistible force. Unlike her friend Andrea, who had been too surprised, she screamed as loud as she could as she was sucked in, because she knew what this was. She couldn't laugh at the flying squirrels, because she was too scared. What was going to happen to her? Then, though, she remembered Andrea.

"HERE I GO!" she cried, shutting her eyes. "I'M COMING, ANDREA!"


	2. Edward

Andrea popped out of the portal and landed in the water of the pool…but it just looked sort of…_different_. The snack bar that had been built there in 1957 was gone…so was the slide that had been built there in 1945. Andrea looked around herself, confused.

Suddenly, a purple cloud opened out of nowhere, and Hermione popped out of it. Andrea looked at her, confused. Hermione looked so afraid when she appeared—but when she saw Andrea, she looked immensely relieved. She hugged her friend and said, "Andrea, oh my God, I'm so glad that I found you!"

"What's up with you?" said Andrea. "They just removed some stuff, didn't they, and I saw some flying squirrels."

"No, no, no, Andrea!" said Hermione, looking anxious. "What did they remove?"

"Well…they removed the snack bar they built in 1957," said Andrea, confused. "Oh, and the slide they built in 1945."

"Oh, Andrea, don't you _get_ it?" said Hermione. "They didn't remove them! They just haven't been built yet!"

"What do you mean?"

"I _mean_," said Hermione, "that I think we've gone back in time! Come on, we've got to find out, somehow, what year it—"

"Herm!" Andrea yelled. She had swum over to a sign near the edge of the pool. "Come and look at this sign! I think you're right!"

Hermione, fearfully, swam over to the sign. For once, she didn't want to be right. If this was really the past, she didn't know _how_ they were going to get back to where they had come from, and anything they did in the past could dramatically alter what happened in the future…and they might not even get born at all!

"'Today is July 16, 1945,'" read Hermione. "You're right, Andrea! It's not 1995! This is…this the pool 50 years ago, Andrea! The year's 1945, don't you see?"

"So?" asked Andrea. "Why are you getting all fussy over it?"

"_Because_!" Hermione cried desperately. "The slide's not here, how are we going to get back to where we came from? Anything we do could change the present drastically! We might not even get born at all!"

"It's _that_ serious?" Andrea asked, her eyes, which were bright green, just like Lily's and just like Harry's, were nearly as big as dinner plates. She was fiddling with the gold locket that she always wore around her neck that had once belonged to Lily and had been found in the wreckage of the house and which had miraculously survived Voldemort's curse, rather like Harry had. Fiddling with that necklace was something Andrea always did when she was nervous or scared.

Hermione nodded. "Y-yes, Andrea. It is that serious."

"Oh my God," said Andrea, still fiddling with her mother's necklace. "Hermione, what are we going to—"

Before she could finish her sentence, though, she heard a boy's voice, screaming at the top of his lungs, right behind her. Hermione heard it, too, of course (how could she not hear it?), and they both turned around.

A very short, skinny boy with brown hair and huge glasses was pointing at the two of them and screaming. Suddenly, his face turned white and he disappeared under the surface of the water.

"He's inhaling water!" Hermione screamed. "He's going to drown, Andrea! We have to save him!"

So the two girls hauled the boy up onto the pavement.

"He needs mouth-to-mouth!" Andrea cried, very dramatically, holding his pale face in her hands and kissing him right on the lips.

The boy woke up after about a minute of this, and as soon as he saw that a girl was kissing him, he sat up and started screaming at the top of his lungs again. Soon he fell into the water and fainted again. Andrea sighed with frustration and leaped into the water, pulling the boy out with her.

She kissed him, again, and when he woke up, this time, he started screaming, but before he could get himself killed, Hermione put her hand on his shoulder and spoke to him in the most soothing voice she could muster.

"We're not going to hurt you," she said. The boy tried to sit up, but Andrea pushed him back down again.

"Why are you so afraid of us?" she said, but Hermione silenced her with a look.

"My name's Hermione Granger, and this is my best friend, Andrea Potter," Hermione said to the boy, smiling at him. "What's your name?"

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! PRETTY GIRLS!" was the boy's only response.

"Please cooperate with me." Hermione held the boy's hand and squeezed it. "Now, I'm going to ask you again. My name's Hermione, and this is Andrea. Who are you?"

"I-I'm Edward," said the boy fearfully.

"Hi, Edward," said Hermione kindly. She smiled at Edward and he sat up, looking at them, seeming very afraid.

"I can't believe you're scared of us…_Edweirdo_," said Andrea. "What's so scary about pretty girls, anyway? I do appreciate the compliment, though."

Edward shook his head, still looking afraid. "Pretty girls are the only thing in this town that scare me more than…_the ghost_."


	3. The Ghost

Andrea and Hermione looked at each other, almost as fearfully as Edward had looked at them.

"What ghost?" asked Andrea.

"Don't you know?" Edward asked. "The ghost that…that terrorizes the town! It scares everybody! And it especially scares me. And everybody laughs, then, because they all think I'm a wimp."

"I don't think you're a wimp, Edward," said Hermione kindly.

"Maybe you don't," said Edward, looking like he was starting to cry; even Andrea felt just a little bit sorry for him then. "Everybody else does, though. And how do you not know about the ghost? Are you from a different town?"

"No." Andrea shook her head; if she had been wearing her pigtails, like she usually did, then they would have whipped from side to side, like they usually did, but she wasn't wearing her pigtails, now, because she never wore them when she was in water or in her bed, and that included the pool. "Listen, Edweirdo, I know this might be hard to believe, but we're from the year 1995. We accidentally got here by a portal, and we don't know how to get back…but we'll help you defeat the ghost, if you like."

"You'll…you'll do that? Really?" said Edward in small voice. "I believe you guys. This _is_ the Wizarding World, remember?"

"Yeah, I do. And of course we'll help you get rid of the ghost," said Hermione, smiling at him. "We're your _friends_, Edward. And we're also going to help you get over your fear of pretty girls."

"Actually, I'm afraid of all girls, not just the pretty ones," said Edward. It was hard to tell which one was redder, Edward's face or Andrea's red swimming suit. "I don't know why, but I always do weird things when I'm around them. I trip and my face gets all hot and my brain jams and I stutter and things come out of my mouth a lot differently than they were in my mind."

"Well, we'll help you with that, too," said Andrea. "The more important thing, though, I think, is to get rid of the ghost."

"Yeah, I agree," said Edward. "So you'll really help me?"

"Of course," said Hermione. "Just like I said before, Edward, we're you're friends. I've got a problem, though."

"What is it?" asked Andrea and Edward, both at the same time.

"I don't know how we're going to get rid of the ghost," said Hermione. "I don't really think I've read anything that would help me get rid of a ghost."

"Hmm," said Andrea studiously, even though she actually wasn't studious.

"Wait a minute, Edward," said Hermione. "Could you give me a bit of background info on this ghost?"

"Well," said Edward, screwing up his face in an effort to remember, "nobody's sure, but they say that around 100 years ago, in 1845, this man lived with his wife in an enormous house with a stable outside, and they also used to own this pool before he died. Then, he had to move because of his wife's job.

"The house they were moving to was too small to keep horses in, so he decided to have one last ride on his horse. He really liked his friends, and he didn't want to leave them, of course, so he was sort of crying. The tears were clouding his eyes so much that he couldn't really see where he was going, and he fell right into a ditch. It was said that he and his horse both died that day, when they fell into the ditch."

"Oh, how horrible!" Hermione gasped.

"Well, of course, his wife still had to move, so she left without him. And they say that, to this day, the ghost of the man and his ghost horse still ride in the pool, terrorizing the people in the pool because they can't stand to see happy people, since it reminds them of how they never were happy, crying because they wish that the wife wouldn't leave. They never found the bodies."

"Oh my _God_," said Andrea. "That _is_ horrible!"

"Hmm," said Hermione. "I have no idea how we're going to get rid of this ghost. I'm sorry, Edward. We might not be able to help you…but we'll try. I know we'll try."

"Okay, then." Edward looked around himself. "Well…the ghost rides in here, like, every day, so…well…he should be along pretty soon."

Then, as though on cue, they heard a voice, a really spooky one, that could only belong to the ghost Edward had been talking about.

"ARRRGGGHHH…I WILL MAKE YOU ALL SUFFER! IF I CAN'T BE HAPPY, NOBODY CAN! ARRRGH!"

"IT'S THE GHOST!" Edward screamed, latching himself onto Andrea.

Andrea and Hermione looked at each other. They didn't know what to do. This was really going to be a problem.


	4. Edward Possessed

"AUGH! HELP! HELP! HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELLLPPP!" Edward screamed. The three of them were back in the water, now, and Edward was trying to run around in circles on the bottom of the pool, but it was harder to run in water than it was on land, of course, so he was having a hard time with it.

"Edward! Calm down!" Andrea said sharply. "It's okay."

"Yeah, totally," said Hermione. "Anyway, how are we going to get to the ghost? Tell him it's okay to feel sad, and that he shouldn't try to make other people feel miserable cuz of it! He knows how it feels, why would he want others to feel that way?"

"He doesn't like being jealous," Edward answered. "He doesn't want other people to get what he wanted but never had."

Suddenly, they saw something white and glimmering that could only be the ghost, riding on his ghost horse.

"ARRRGGGHHH! I WILL MAKE YOU ALL SUFFER!" he cried again. They could see silver tears running down his face…and the horse's, too.

"Ghost, please!" Hermione cried, rather desperately. "Don't be like this! Please, just _talk_ to us. Don't terrorize people, try to be nice."

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" the ghost roared.

"This is going to be harder than you thought, eh, Hermione?" said Andrea, looking rather scared at the ghost and his ghost horse.

"Yes," said Hermione, "it is…but I'm not giving up this easily!"

She smiled at the ghost and his ghost horse, even though it was difficult, since she was so scared. "Can you please tell us about what's wrong?"

Suddenly, they could no longer see the ghost, just the ghost horse, waiting there in the waters of the pool, obediently, for its master…and something very strange seemed to be happening to Edward.

His limbs were shaking and he was no longer making the terrified face he had been. His head now twisted around, slowly, to look at the girls.

"It's me," said Edward, in a howling voice, quite unlike his own. "The ghost."

"EDWARD!" Hermione cried desperately. "You've got to resist! Don't let the ghost do anything to you!"

"Edward's not here any longer," said the ghost. Edward's face smiled.

"Yes, he is!" Andrea cried. "You're just possessing him! I know his brain is still in there somewhere!"

"Yes!" cried the ghost. "Yes! Nothing on God's green Earth will make me let him go, though! Your friend is gone forever!"

"No!" Hermione cried. "Think…think…think…"

She thought as hard as she could, thinking about all the books she had ever read, and everything she had done. Suddenly, she remembered this nonfiction book she had read once, called _Extraordinary Encounters with Ghosts_, and she remembered that one of the stories was one that had taken place at a pool, in 1945, about two girls who had came to the pool out of nowhere, and used something to banish a ghost from the pool that had been terrorizing the town. What had the girls used, though? Hermione had a slight feeling those two girls just might be Andrea and her.

Suddenly, she remembered.

"I've got it!" she screamed, happy that she had found the solution. Now, she could finally rescue Edward and the rest of the town. "Chocolate!"

"_Chocolate_?" said Andrea, baffled. "Hermione, how could you possibly be thinking about chocolate at a time like this?"

"No!" Hermione cried, almost laughing with relief. "Andrea, the way we're going to get rid of this ghost is…with some chocolate!"


	5. Chocolate

"Okay. I don't want to say you're crazy, Hermione, but…" Andrea gave a small, slightly derisive laugh. "You're crazy. How are we going to stop the ghost and his ghost horse with just some chocolate?"

"I don't know," said Hermione. "I read somewhere, though, about two girls at a pool who appeared out of nowhere one day, in 1945, and stopped a ghost and his ghost horse from terrorizing the town with chocolate. It was a nonfiction book, Andrea. Think about it! I think those girls were actually…_us_."

"Well, it's a possibility," said Andrea doubtfully.

"Possibility or not, let's just try the chocolate thing," said Hermione. "If you think you have a better way of getting rid of these ghosts, I'm willing to listen."

Andrea said nothing.

"Good." Hermione smiled a little bit then. "Okay…hmm. I think what the girls did was, they gave the chocolate to the ghost and—"

"Did you say you were going to give some chocolate to me?" said the ghost, Edward's eyes opening wide. "I _love_ chocolate!"

"This—this—wait!" Andrea ran to Hermione as much as she could in the water. "Don't you remember, Hermione? We packed chocolate on our trip, since the snack bar they built in 1957 doesn't really have good chocolate! We _were_ those girls, I think! I think you're right, Hermione! You've got me convinced."

"Good," said Hermione. "We don't have our pool bag, though. Oh, no…what are we going to do?"

"Hmm," said Andrea. "Well…since the girls in the book, who were undoubtedly us, somehow got the ghost to leave using chocolate, we _must_ have figured out a way to do it, right? Yeah! So…HEY, YOU! DO YOU HAVE ANY CHOCOLATE TO SPARE?"

Andrea was yelling at a little boy, eating a hunk of chocolate. He clutched the chocolate closer to himself, shaking his head no.

"Talk about stingy," Andrea muttered.

"We're not going to eat it!" said Hermione. "We're going to use it to get rid of these ghosts—but if you'd rather selfishly eat it all by yourself, be my guest."

"The ghost!" said the boy incredulously. "Oh, why didn't you say so?"

He threw the hunk of chocolate to Andrea, who, seeing as she was one of the Chasers on the Gryffindor Quidditch Team, caught it and gave it to Hermione to deal with, since it was pretty much Hermione who had come up with the plan in the first place.

"Ghost," said Hermione, speaking to Edward. Andrea could almost see the gears turning in her brain. "Umm…this is…this is a gift…from your wife."


	6. Emile, Gloria, and the Ghost Horse

"From m-my wife?" said the ghost.

"Yeah," said Hermione, smiling. "She said to give it to you, sort of as an apology present because she left without you when you died in the ditch."

"DON'T TALK ABOUT THAT!" screamed the ghost, his anger coming back. Edward's body jumped on Hermione angrily. Luckily, Edward was smaller than Hermione, so she didn't get hurt much, only a couple of scratches on her face and arms.

"No, please!" said Hermione. "Listen, ghost. Here's what I need you to do. Your wife really loves you. She does. She didn't mean to do this to you. She just _had to _move cuz of her job. She had no choice."

The ghost just sat there, staring at her out of Edward's eyes. For a moment, Hermione thought he was going to scream at her, possibly even attack her again…but what she didn't expect was what the ghost did next. He burst into tears.

"Oh!" said Hermione, tearfully. She dragged the ghost out of the water and wrapped somebody's towel around Edward's shivering body, then sat him down in a pool chair that was nearby. The ghost kept on crying as she encircled Edward's shoulders with her arm, and after he finally stopped, he finally just leaned against her, sniffing sadly.

"I miss her," he said, and then started sobbing again quietly. "I miss her!"

"_Shh_," said Hermione, soothingly, stroking Edward's hair. Andrea climbed out of the water, too, and joined them. The ghost suddenly came out of Edward's body, then, and the ghost horse came galloping out of the water to rejoin its master.

"Listen. Here's what you're going to do." Andrea pulled some roses off a bush that was nearby. "See these?"

The ghost nodded pitifully, with Edward just watching like he didn't really know what was going on. And he didn't, actually, because he couldn't remember the time in which he had been possessed, of course.

"Okay. You're going to give them to your wife, say they're from you. She's probably dead by now, because the ditch incident happened 100 years ago from now."

"Yes, it did," said the ghost, sadly. "I've been haunting the place ever since."

"So…so I got something right for once?" said Edward, looking happy. "That's good! I'm not much of a loser, after all!"

"We couldn't have done this without you, Edward," said Hermione, warmly; and it was true. They couldn't have.

"Okay," said the ghost, sniffing again. "Thanks, you guys…now, I think I know what to do, from here."

He looked to the sky, and called, "Gloria? GLORIA!"

Nothing happened for a second. The ghost, who was holding his ghost horse by one of the silver reins, looked extremely disappointed. Hermione and Andrea felt so sorry for him. Just then, the clouds parted, and the ghost of a beautiful woman emerged.

"Gloria!" cried the ghost happily.

"Emile!" Gloria looked down at him. "Oh, are those flowers for me? How sweet! Come on, rest in peace. Come up here and stop terrorizing the town."

"Okay," said Emile. "First, though, I must have these wonderful people's names."

"My name's Hermione Granger," said Hermione, smiling. "And these are my best friends, Andrea Potter and Edward—"

"Delingo," said Edward shyly.

"—and Edward Delingo," finished Hermione, smiling at Edward. "Now…have a good time, you two. Goodbye."

"Goodbye," said Emile, as Gloria waited patiently above.

"Goodbye, goodbye!" Edward, Hermione, and Andrea said, as Emile descended to the heavens to be with his wife, Gloria, with the ghost horse trailing behind.

When the clouds closed up again, Hermione was smiling and wiping the tears that were coming out of her brown eyes faster than she could stop them.

"Are you all right, Hermione?" asked Edward coyly.

"Yes," said Hermione. "Oh, that was just one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen in my whole entire life!"

And she promptly burst into tears.


	7. Edward's New GF

"So…" Edward was looking really shy again. "So…you're going to help me get over my fear of girls, right? You said you would. I mean, it's okay if you don't want to, I mean, but, um—"

"It's okay, Edward." Hermione smiled. "You don't even have to be in debt to us if you don't want to. We _want to _help you. I wouldn't like it if I were afraid of boys…would you like that, Andrea?"

"Definitely not," said Andrea, grinning.

"Well, let's get started, then!" Edward said, happily. The girls were glad that they had managed to make him so happy.

"All right, Edward," said Andrea in a business-like voice, sitting him down in another pool chair. "So you're afraid of girls."

"That means I need to see a psychologist, right?" Edward asked them, sadly.

"Of course not, Edward!" said Hermione, pulling up yet another pool chair and sitting beside Edward; Andrea did the same, on his other side. "The only reason you do those weird things around girls—and then become afraid of them—is because you just get so _nervous_. It's perfectly normal."

"Nobody else I know is afraid of girls."

"Look." Andrea got up from her pool chair. "Pretend that I'm this really pretty girl whom you have a crush on, okay? And say you see me at the pool today. What do you do?"

"Uhhh…" Edward's face was getting a little bit red. Or maybe a lot red. It was hard to tell, actually.

"You come talk to me, that's what you do!" Andrea said, rather sharply. "Okay. Just come up to me and make some small talk. Maybe girls will like you more."

"I can't!" said Edward. "What if I trip or something?"

"Then you get up, and laugh about it!" Andrea said. "Look, they might not get a crush on you from just one encounter, but they will notice you if you talk to them, and trip in the process, whereas if you stay on that chair all your life you won't ever get a girlfriend!"

"I'm so short, though!" said Edward. "I'm a midget! I'm thirteen…I should be taller than you guys by now."

"No, you shouldn't," said Hermione. "We're _fifteen_, Edward. We're two years older than you! And even if you are a midget, you'll probably get a huge growth spurt when you're my age."

"Fine," said Edward grumpily. He walked up to Andrea and said, "Hi, Andrea. My name's Edward."

"Hey, Edward," said Andrea.

"Hey," said Edward, looking around. "Listen, I-I heard about this great movie that's playing, and…well, I-I'd be r-really happy if you went to see it with me."

"Why, Edward, thanks, but…no thanks." Andrea smiled.

"Why'd you refuse me?" asked Edward, looking at Andrea as though she had just gone insane or something.

"You have to learn how to accept rejection," said Andrea shrewdly. "Not everybody's going to take you to the—"

"Oh my God!" cried Edward, and he scurried to hide behind Andrea.

"What is it, Edward?" asked Andrea, but Edward's only response was to point. Andrea, and Hermione too, followed his gaze. There was a beautiful blonde girl there, the wind blowing her hair like in a shampoo commercial. Edward's hand was shaking, like, an inch from side to side, and he looked terrified.

"I think that's the girl he's got a crush on, Andrea," said Hermione knowingly.

"Definitely," said Andrea, looking at the girl. She was wearing a pretty pink bikini and, by now, Edward was drooling all over the place. Andrea rolled her eyes.

"Go talk to her, Edward," said Hermione, getting up from her chair, walking to Edward, and giving him a gentle push.

"I can't," said Edward. He seemed so scared.

"Yes, you can, Edward!" cried Andrea. "Your only problem is that you just don't have enough confidence in yourself. Now go and talk to her."

"Her name's Stephanie," said Edward shyly. "And you're right, Andrea. I think I'm going to go talk to her."

"Good for you, Edward!" said Hermione, smiling, and Andrea gave him the thumbs-up sign as he came out from behind her.

They couldn't hear what Edward was saying as he approached Stephanie, but they did seem to be getting along well. Then, as they were leaving, Edward turned back to Andrea and Hermione, giving them the thumbs-up. His arm was around Stephanie's waist, since he couldn't really reach her shoulders.

Hermione and Andrea looked at each other, smiling.

"We did it!" Hermione said, happily, and Andrea agreed, as they watched their friend leave the pool with Stephanie.


	8. Where Do We Go From Here?

"That is just sooo sweet," said Andrea. "Know what, though? We need to get back to the present, and _pronto_."

"Okay," said Hermione. "And just _how_ are we going to do that? And what are we going to do when Edward comes back here, expecting to see us and tell us all about his date, and we're not here?"

"Oh, yeah," said Andrea. She pulled out her cellphone and took it out. "I'm going to send him a text message telling him where we went. We'll probably never see each other again, since we're going forward in time, but he _should_ at least know we got to, shouldn't he? You're right, Hermione."

"Of course," Hermione said. "Hurry up! Type the message! Then we can figure out how to get out of here."

"Okay," said Andrea. She typed:

APbabe1: Hey, Edward. It's me, Andrea Potter. You won't find Hermione and I at the pool when you get back from your date with Stephanie, since we're going back to the future. Don't worry, though: I'm going to leave something for you to remember me by. So is Hermione. Bye! Love ya, Edward, and Hermione loves ya too! Hope you had a fabulously awesome time with Stephanie!

"All right, did you send him the message?" asked Hermione. "In the book I read, it said that the two girls disappeared down a slide they built after that and that they were never seen again."

"Hmm," said Andrea. "Wait a minute. Who wrote the book?"

"Umm," Hermione said, trying very hard to remember. "It was…it was some guy whose name was Edward Delingo! It must have been that same Edward, Andrea! It's just too much of a coincidence!"

"Oh, that was _sooo_ sweet!" Andrea cried. "He wrote a book about us! Well, I hope he lived a nice good life. In our time, he'll be 63…so he could still be alive when we get back to the present! That'd be great!"

"Well, come on," said Hermione, smiling. "Let's build that slide, Andrea."


	9. Hairy Builder Guys

"You seriously aren't expecting us to build a slide all by ourselves…are you?" Andrea asked, looking at Hermione as though fearing for her sanity.

"Of course not. We're going to hire a building crew. I think that if we pool our money, then we'll probably be able to get a slide built," said Hermione. "I would never try to build a slide by myself!"

"That's good," said Andrea.

So the two girls looked in the Wizarding Phone Book, and they found some builder guys in the Yellow Pages who might be able to build them a slide ("Bob's Construction"). The guys said they would be coming the next day, and Hermione and Andrea were not really prepared for that. They didn't have any money left with them to stay in a hotel!

Until, that is, the builder guys (who had backwards baseball caps on, hair that went down past their shoulders, striped shirts, butt cracks poking out of their jeans, were hairy, and were fat, more often than not) decided that Hermione and Andrea were so pretty that they would do the job for free.

"Oh…no, let me just pay you a little bit for all your hard work," said Hermione, when the slide was finished. Andrea, rolling her eyes at this, thrust some money into the builder guys' hands and they looked so excited about it.

"Nice thing to do, pretty!" yelled one builder guy over his hairy shoulder, scratching himself with one hand, a beer can in the other. Then he let out a massive burp and laughed, while putting his arms up. His armpits were so hairy. Hermione and Andrea thought that they were going to throw up or something.

"That. Is. So. Gross," said Andrea.

"Well, they _did_ build the slide for us," said Hermione, trying to look on the bright side, although she was thinking the same thing that Andrea was saying. They went to the top of the slide. Andrea smiled at Hermione.

"Here, you can go first," she said. "I went first last time…"

"Oh, well, okay," said Hermione, even though it was pretty understandable why she wouldn't want to go down another slide, given what had happened the last time she had gone down one. Then she thought of Edward and everybody…and she smiled, thinking that it was worth it. And then she "surfed" down the slide, just like Andrea.

"Goodbye, goodbye!" said Andrea, then she climbed up the freshly built metal stairs to the top of the slide, and then riding down it…actually, "surfing", just like Hermione had, and she had done another time. "BACK TO THE FUTURE!"


	10. The New Owner of the Pool

The two girls arrived in the pool. Nervously, they went to go check and see, on that sign that always told you, what year it was.

"'Today is July 17, 1995,'" Andrea read, when both of the girls had arrived to that special date sign. "Hermione…we're back!"

"Oh, finally!" said Hermione. "No more hairy builder guys for me!"

"Nor me," said Andrea, shuddering. Just then, she noticed something on the sign she had never noticed before. "Hey, Herm, look."

Hermione looked to what Andrea was pointing at. "Oh my God, Andrea…it just can't be…it can't…but I think it is. Maybe he's in there now!"

They went into the pool office. The man they were looking for was not in there, but there were some bored lifeguards there, making sure nobody tried to sneak into the pool. When she saw a phone on the table, Hermione decided to take the chance.

"Excuse me," she said to the lifeguard in her most businesslike, important voice, which was actually very businesslike and important for a fifteen-year-old.

The lifeguard looked up moodily, her sunglasses slipping down her hot, sweaty nose.

"Can…can I p-please speak to the owner of the pool, please?" asked Hermione. "Er, you _have_ got his phone number, haven't you?"

"Of course I have," snapped the lifeguard, annoyed.

When the lifeguard had finished dialing for Hermione, Hermione put her ear to the phone and waited for someone to answer…and, finally, they did.

"Hello?" said an old man's voice.

"Hi," said Hermione, rather nervously. "You might not remember who I am, but I'm that girl from the future you met when you were thirteen. You know, the girl who, along with her best friend, Andrea Potter, helped you to overcome your fear of girls. You know, _that_ girl. Hermione Granger."

"Hermione…Hermione…wait…I think I do remember you!" said the old man's voice, getting wheezy, as old mens' voices usually did, when they were excited. "You're that girl…oh, it's sooo weird that it was actually true! Hello, how are you doing?"

"Great, Edward," said Hermione warmly. "Isn't it weird how you grew to be age 63, but we're still fifteen?"

"Sure is," said old Edward happily. "Sure is. Remember how I used to be so afraid of girls when I was younger? Still gets a laugh out of this old geezer, it does."

"Oh, Edward!" Hermione laughed. "And it was _us_ who built the new slide! Well, we hired a lot of hairy builder guys to do it, actually, but it was our idea to build it in the first place, though. We paid them, don't worry. And so now you own the pool?"

"Yep," said old Edward proudly. "Listen, Hermione, can I talk to the other young lady who was my friend back then? Andrea?"

"Sure," said Hermione, handing the phone to Andrea. Andrea picked up the phone and she heard old Edward speaking to her.

"Listen, I really appreciate all you did for me," said old Edward. "I'll never forget you girls. Never. I think you'll grow into fine young women."

"Thanks, Edward!" said Andrea. Just when they were about to talk more, though, the lifeguard lady yanked the phone out of Andrea's hands.

"She has to say goodbye, now," she said irritably into the part where you speak into the phone. "I hope you enjoyed talking to the ladies, Edward, and…goodbye."

"Goodbye!" cried Edward merrily as the lady hung up the phone.

"Girl from the future?" said the lifeguard, her voice sharp. "Fear of girls? _He_ grew all the way to 63, but _you_ stayed fifteen? New slide? Hairy builder guys? Listen…I think his memory's bad enough, don't you?"

All she got in response was Andrea and Hermione giggling as they went to collect their stuff on the pool chairs. It had sure been an exciting day!

THE END 


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